Making changes to your benefits package is usually reserved for Open Enrollment, but marriage and divorce qualify for changes throughout the plan year.
You have 60 days to submit a Qualified Life Event.
If you get married or divorced, you are eligible to enroll yourself, your new spouse, and other eligible dependents not already on your policy, specifically:
Add / remove spouse from medical, dental, and vision benefits, including adding new dependent children to any of these
Elect, increase, or decrease contributions to your Health FSA and Dependent FSA (consistent with life event)
Elect, increase, decrease, or drop group supplemental life and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D).
Please note that any changes must be consistent with the qualified life event. (For example, if you get married you may change your Employee Only coverage to Employee Plus Spouse or Family. You may not switch coverage from Basic Health to Choice Health.)
What You Need to Know and Do
Within 60 days of the qualifying event, initiate and finish the process of adding or deleting dependent(s) in Workday:
- Navigate to Workday>Benefits & Pay Hub>Change Benefits
- If you (not dependents) are waiving your current medical, dental, or vision benefit enrollments or if you are enrolling under UVA medical, dental, or vision benefits for the first time because of a qualifying life event, you must make your request to askhr@virginia.edu.
- Upload the required paperwork
- See this chart detailing documentation requirements that confirm the qualified life event and, if you are adding a spouse or dependent to your coverage, the documentation to confirm their relationship to you.
You may change your tax withholding due to adding or removing a dependent.
- Navigate to Workday>My Pay App>Withholding Elections
- Click on the Update button and make your changes
When Will Changes Take Effect?
For marriage:
Your new dependents’ coverage will begin on the first of the month following receipt of the enrollment application and documentation at UVA HR and no earlier than the event date if it is received within 60 days of the qualified life event.
If you submit an application >60 days after the marriage, you must wait until the next open enrollment to submit the request and documentation. The change will be effective the first of the following plan year.
For Divorce:
Coverage for your spouse ends on the last day of the month in which the divorce is final. You are responsible for reimbursing the Plan for any payments made by the Plan for claims submitted for your ineligible dependents after the date their coverage ends.
COBRA:
For divorce, your spouse may purchase continuing coverage under COBRA for up to 36 months if UVA HR is notified within 60 days of the final divorce decree. If eligible, you will receive a letter from Chard Snyder, who administers COBRA for UVA.
Flexible Spending Accounts and Dependent Daycare reimbursement Account
As a result of marriage or divorce, you may make changes to your Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Dependent Daycare Reimbursement Account which are consistent with the qualified life events (increase for adding dependents, and decrease for removal of dependents but not less than amount already contributed). You must make the request to change your FSA within 60 days of marriage or the divorce decree. Changes become effective the first day of the following month after the request and documentation has been received.
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